


This Boyfriends Bullshit

by likearecord



Series: New Tricks [2]
Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Andrew Minyard Has Feelings, Boyfriends, Even if some people are in denial, Extra content? I don't know her, Grad school that is mentioned only once in passing, Idiots in Love, M/M, Occasional murderous rage, POV Andrew Minyard, So you know this is really an AU, Soft Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard, The Golden Girls are iconic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:41:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,985
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25394797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likearecord/pseuds/likearecord
Summary: Follow-up toThis Roommates Bullshit. Neil has had his epiphany. Now Andrew has to come to some of his own realizations.
Relationships: Katelyn/Aaron Minyard, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Series: New Tricks [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1839229
Comments: 87
Kudos: 1084





	This Boyfriends Bullshit

**Author's Note:**

> This fic brought to you by Henry Styles' "Adore You" and John Mulaney.

_Andrew was already angry about people talking in the quiet study room before some tall guy with an obvious stick up his ass added yelling to the mix. It’s annoying enough that Andrew actually gets involved; he casually shows the group one of his knives and, as it so often happens, the problem is solved._

_The tall guy looks at him. “You’re carrying a knife.”_

_“Am I?” Andrew asks._

_“You should meet my roommate,” the guy says. “He’s good with knives.”_

_“Sounds good,” Andrew deadpans. “I love going to secondary locations with strangers.”_

_The guy rolls his eyes and sticks out his hand. “Kevin.”_

_“Andrew,” he says, ignoring the hand. “I don’t care about your roommate.”_

_“Okay,” Kevin shrugs. “I just thought one asshole might appreciate another.”_

___

Andrew is a light enough sleeper that he wakes when his phone vibrates on the nightstand, clattering against the wood. There are only a few people whose calls his phone is even programmed to put through, so he gropes for it blindly, keeping mostly still so as not to dislodge the boy curled against his side. He squints blearily at his dimly-lit self on the screen until he can make out Aaron’s name superimposed over him. 

He taps the accept button and waits until Aaron’s face appears on screen; the outpouring of light from the screen illuminates his own. “What’s wrong?” he whispers. 

“Why are you whispering?”

“It’s 3 in the morning,” Andrew points out, squinting at the top of the phone to double-check. “People are sleeping.”

“People?” Aaron asks skeptically. And not quietly. 

“Shh,” Andrew hushes him, but it’s too late. Neil is already stirring beside him, the head against his shoulder turning away from the light, the arm across his chest tightening. 

“Are you _in bed with someone_?” Aaron asks, loudly. 

Andrew is going to have to get up. He rubs his face hard with his free hand to summon more alertness and starts to move carefully out from under Neil, who whines sleepily and tries to tuck him closer. “I’ll be right back,” he whispers, nuzzling into the hair above his ear. “Go back to sleep.”

Aaron, at least, keeps his mouth shut until Andrew quietly closes the bedroom door behind him and turns on the living room light. 

“I’m pretty sure that’s not your apartment,” Aaron accuses. 

“Masterful observation. Do you want a trophy?”

“Where _are_ you? Were you _cuddling_ with someone?”

“Neil’s,” Andrew says, figuring that answering the first question will take care of the second, too. “Why are you calling this late? Is everything okay?”

“Who the fuck is Neil?” Aaron asks, instead of answering any of the questions that might explain what emergency justifies him calling Andrew in the middle of the fucking night. 

“If you called me at 3am to ask about him, I’m going to have to assume you’ve been spying on me.”

“Maybe I should be,” Aaron huffs. “What the fuck. Do you have a _boyfriend_?”

“No,” Andrew says flatly. “Now tell me why you’re calling or I’m hanging up and going back to bed.”

“With _Neil_?”

“Goodnight,” Andrew says. 

“No, no, wait,” Aaron says urgently, pausing Andrew’s finger millimeters from the red button on his screen. “I was just at this med school party and there was a lot of stuff getting passed around. I left, but I just. I needed to talk to someone who knew why.”

“Good,” Andrew says after a pause to process. “What do you want to talk about? Do not say the word boyfriend again.”

“Fine,” Aaron says, his eyes narrowing. Andrew knows that look. He sees it in the mirror all the time. “What are you doing tomorrow?” 

That little fucker. 

Andrew sighs. “They’re running a half marathon.”

“Who’s ‘they’?”

“Neil and Kevin,” Andrew says grudgingly. 

“Who the fuck is _Kevin_?” 

Andrew suppresses another sigh. “The roommates. Kevin and Allison.” 

“Andrew,” Aaron says slowly. “Do you have friends?”

Andrew gives him an unimpressed look. 

“Don’t give me that look,” Aaron shoots back. “You hate people.”

“Most people,” Andrew corrects. 

“But not these people? You have friends. You’re _cuddling_. Nicky is going to lose his shit.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Andrew says. 

“Oh, no, no way,” Aaron says, grinning brightly. “You know how worried he was about you moving to New York alone. What time is it in Germany?”

“I’m going back to bed,” Andrew says flatly. 

“Yeah, I’m good,” Aaron says, with a gleam of mischief in his eye. “I have plenty to think about other than drugs now.”

Andrew manages to flip Aaron off while he hangs up with a press of his thumb. When he crawls back in bed he finds that Neil has rolled away onto his side. Andrew fits himself against him and drapes an arm over his waist, pressing a kiss against the curve of his shoulder. They have to get up in 3 hours to make it to the race; Andrew should be too awake to get back to sleep now, but he drifts off easily, breathing in the scent of Neil’s shampoo and sinking into the warmth pressed against his chest.

. : : . 

He and Allison are the only ones groggy in the morning. Kevin and Neil bounce around energetically, alternately munching on what appears to be a carefully curated pre-running menu and doing elaborate warm ups. Andrew sits on the stool next to Allison, clutching his coffee and watching Neil’s ass as he bends and stretches. In a better world they’d be in bed and that ass would be in his hands, those legs around his waist. And it would be at least four hours later in the day.

Reluctantly, he drags his attention away when Allison starts presenting him with shirt options. 

“There’s this one,” Allison says, her smile blinding as she holds up a shirt that says, in three kinds of glitter, ‘I ♥ Neil.’ 

“No,” Andrew says. He takes the shirt, though, tucking it under his thigh. “Next.”

“Uh huh,” Allison says, smirking. The next one she holds up says ‘I’m just here for the snacks and asses.’ 

Andrew raises an eyebrow at her. 

“Too far?” Allison asks innocently. 

“It sends a message,” Andrew says.

“This is a family event,” Kevin scolds. He’s gently rocking through a lunge. Andrew had tried to ignore but tragically cannot forget the informative seminar Kevin had given on dynamic vs. static stretching and its impact on a runner’s speed and recovery time. 

He takes this shirt from Allison too, though. He could find a use for it. People always need rags around, right?

“I’ve saved the best for last, anyway,” Allison says, brightening. She shakes out the last shirt and holds it up. “Ta da!”

This one says ‘This seems like a lot of work for a free 🍌’ The banana is rendered in incredibly sparkly yellow glitter. Generally, Andrew appreciates both the disdainful tone and the phallic reference.

He pulls it on over his long-sleeved shirt and tugs it straight. “Acceptable.” 

“Disgraceful,” Kevin says, slightly glaring from the depths of his lunge. 

Andrew turns to look at Neil, who’s in a deep bend on the floor. Neil just smiles up at him and says, “I like it.”

. : : .

Allison insists that they take up spots at the end of the course because, she says, Neil and Kevin both have a real chance at being ranked finishers. Andrew agrees. If nothing else, they can gather the idiots quickly and move on to the promised post-run feast. It does, however, make watching a half-marathon even more boring than one would usually expect. There are no runners passing them. All of the action is earlier on the course. Andrew drops to the ground to sit cross-legged and infuriate Aaron and Nicky by never directly answering any of the texts they’re sending him about all of these new people in his life.

He’s expecting it to take literal hours—if he had to cover 13.1 miles on foot, he’s pretty sure it would take a whole fucking day—but way sooner than he would have expected Allison kicks him lightly and says, “They’re coming.”

She readies her truly, fantastically over the top “your feet only hurt because you’re kicking so much ass” sign and bounces in preparation. Andrew has already flatly rejected the “worst parade ever” sign she brought him—gratifyingly, she’d just shrugged and handed it off to a group of girls a little ways down the course from them. 

Andrew checks his phone. It’s been about 90 minutes, give or take. He clambers to his feet and watches as a small cluster of runners come into sight, more surprised than he’d admit to see Neil keeping pace alongside another guy, several feet in front of a smaller group of people who are obviously desperate to overtake them. 

It’s been explained to him that running distances like this requires keeping a steady pace, not wearing yourself out on early sprints but not letting people pass you, either. All of that seems to go out the window in the last 50 or so yards of the race. The guy just ahead of Neil looks to be about eight inches taller, his strides longer; he also looks tired, though, red in the face and chest heaving. Neil looks as settled as Andrew has ever seen him—calculating and determined, but calm and steady. Andrew watches something change in his posture, in the angle of his body, and within a few strides he’s visibly pulled ahead of the other guy, who tries—but fails—to make up for Neil’s sudden burst of speed. 

Neil crosses the finish line first, eight seconds before the other guy. Andrew feels a sharp, unkind stab of glee at the other guy’s loss, but it’s weak in comparison to the appreciation he feels for the way sweat glues Neil’s clothes to him as he gets checked in by one of the officials. For the second time in the few hours they’ve been conscious, Andrew wishes they could be locked away in one of their bedrooms instead of out, interacting with other people. 

Kevin comes in a few minutes later, apparently long enough that he doesn’t need his own official, and beelines for Neil to bro-hug and high-five. They’re quickly mobbed by other sweaty finishers, all ironically looking much more invested in their slower final times than Neil does. Andrew keeps catching glimpses of him through the crowd—slices of his ridiculous orange shorts, a brief flash of his auburn hair. This is a pointless and idiotic endeavor in general, so he’s not exactly impatient to congratulate Neil, but he is impatient to have him nearby again. Aaron’s call had thrown him—knocked him out of their easy routine of _want_ and _have_ and into a place where he feels the need to analyze things and guard against...what? Commitment. Relationship status. The word relationship. 

Allison drags Andrew to meet them halfway when they start heading over. Neil, sweaty and still breathing a little raggedly, slides into his place at Andrew’s slide like a key into the lock. He looks disheveled and very hot, but also like he might fall over, so Andrew wraps an arm tight around his waist and tugs, bracing to support the weight of Neil leaning heavily against him. 

Allison, on the other hand, immediately drops her sign, grabs Kevin around the waist, and tries to lift him and spin. 

Predictably, they hit the ground right away—Allison giggling and Kevin rolling onto his back to starfish in exhaustion.

“Good job,” Andrew says to Neil, mumbling against his shoulder in a half-kiss. “You did the pointless thing faster than the other idiots.” 

“Thanks,” Neil says drily. 

“You’re gross,” Andrew says, tightening his hold. “You need a shower.” 

“Oh,” Neil says, affecting his most innocent voice. “Should we do that before lunch?” 

Andrew glares and pinches Neil’s side, suppressing a smile when Neil laughs brightly.

. : : .

He can only dodge Nicky for so long. After about five days of ducking calls and sending vague text responses, Nicky starts emailing him flight itineraries for the trip from Germany to New York and asking pointed questions about Andrew’s class schedule and guest sleeping arrangements.

He sends _fine_ in their message thread and braces himself for the video call that comes in seconds later. 

“Andrew!” 

“Yes,” Andrew says. “Well, it was nice to see you. Goodbye.”

“Don’t start,” Nicky laughs. Andrew can tell that Nicky is on his stomach in bed—the angle is a dead giveaway and the erotic line drawings in frames on the wall behind him announce the location. “Aaron says you’ve met people.”

“I told you I’d met people.”

“Yeah, well,” Nicky says, grinning, “sometimes you can be a little literal.”

“Let’s get this over with,” Andrew says. “What will it take to get you and Aaron off my back?” 

Nicky beams at him. “Tell me everything.”

“Definitely not.” 

“Okay,” Nicky says. “Tell me ten things.”

“One.”

“Asshole. Nine.”

“None.”

“Fine,” Nicky laughs. “Five. Give me five questions. Either you tell me shit now or I fly to New York and find out on my own.”

“Three,” Andrew counters, satisfied when Nicky sighs but nods his assent. 

“I’ve been trying to imagine the person you’d put up with that much. What’s he like?” Nicky asks. 

“Chaotic good,” Andrew says, earning a snort from Nicky.

“Let’s see,” Nicky drawls, peering at something on his screen. “There’s a flight from Munich tomorrow that leaves at 1:30.” 

Andrew glowers at the camera. “He’s an idiot.”

“Well, that’s a given.”

Andrew tries to figure out a way to describe Neil that wouldn’t just be vomiting all of his complicated feelings out onto this FaceTime call. “He has an attitude problem. He’s a sarcastic shit and he runs his mouth all the time. He taught me how to throw knives. He’s a jock who’s studying linguistics. He speaks four languages. He works out for fun. His idea of reading is a podcast, but he’s smart. When he’s not being stupid.”

He realizes belatedly that this may sound like a list of reasons not to like Neil, but in all honesty, they’re some of Andrew’s favorite things about him. He tacks on, “He’s interesting. He has my back. I’m not sure which of us would be better at murder.”

Nicky nods, his face as bright as if Andrew had just recited Yeats. 

“Is it serious?” he asks. 

“Calm down,” Andrew says. “It’s been less than three months. We don’t all marry the first gay German we lay eyes on.”

Nicky at least knows when to back off, so he tilts his head to the side and changes direction. “Less heavy question,” he says brightly. “Is he hot? Actually, just send me pictures.” 

“You are not allowed to hit on Neil,” Andrew warns. 

“Yes, yes, boundaries, I know. Pictures.” 

Andrew pulls up his app and scrolls through his recent photos. He’s not particularly big on selfies, but he’s taken an embarrassing number of pictures of Neil in the last few months and he has dozens of the two of them together that Allison has sent to him. 

He picks a couple he’d taken of Neil at his apartment—flopped in Andrew’s bed with a book, curled up on his couch and grimacing at the ice cream sundae Andrew had put in his hands. There’s the one Allison had taken of them after the half-marathon last week, with Neil pressed tight against his side, beaming at him—he’s not smiling back, not exactly, but he can read the softness in his own face and the affection in the arm around Neil’s waist like it’s written in neon. Plus, maybe Nicky will be distracted by the shorts. He picks another one Allison had sent him a few weeks ago—Andrew and Kevin are on their plush couch, Neil on the floor with his chin on Andrew’s knee, watching him calmly whip Kevin into a frenzy of outrage. After only a moment’s hesitation, he adds a picture someone had taken for them after the last time they won pub trivia, all four of them crammed into a tiny booth, Andrew affecting a deep interest in his fingernails while the other three smile brilliantly at the camera. 

He sends them all and clicks back into FaceTime to watch Nicky pick up his phone and study the photos. 

“Look at him,” Nicky says, tearily, after a minute. “He adores you.”

“Don’t be gross,” Andrew warns.

“Sorry, sorry. Should I just talk about how hot he is?”

“How is that better?”

“But, Andrew.” Nicky takes a steadying breath and then releases it, directing a wobbly smile at the screen. “The way he’s looking at you.”

And the thing is—Andrew knows. He is intimately familiar with the look in Neil’s eyes when they’re on him. He feels the tectonic shifts in himself when it’s particularly potent. And maybe, when it’s been more than a couple of months, he’ll be able to acknowledge it to someone who isn’t his therapist. 

“Satisfied?” he asks. 

“Incredibly,” Nicky says. His voice is still a little uneven but at least he’s not visibly weepy. “I think…two photos a week will keep me in Germany.” 

“Blatant extortion,” Andrew says. 

“Thank you,” Nicky says, putting his hand to his chest. “Coming from you, that means so much.”

Andrew hangs up on him.

. : : .

They go to one of Andrew’s neighborhood bars, presumably so that Kevin and Allison can wingwoman each other and find either Serious Relationship Material or Acceptable One Night Stand Material—their priorities are not clear. 

Instead, they end up clustered around a table arguing over who’s the best Golden Girl, of all things.

“I know who Andrew’s favorite would be,” Allison says, blowing on her nails cockily. “I’d put money on it. In fact, we should.”

“Bet on the Golden Girls?” Kevin asks. 

“Is that the one where they all live in the subdivision? With the suicide?” Neil asks. 

“That’s Desperate Housewives,” Allison says, absently, waving the guess off as a distraction. “We’ll all write down our favorites and our guesses as to who the other two’s favorites are. Whoever gets the least right has to buy the next round.” 

“Is it the one in New York where the main woman has big hair and a lot of clothes?”

“Sex and the City,” Kevin says. “And I’m in. Neil can tabulate the results.” 

“Deal,” Allison says. “Though Neil, sweet child, we’re going to start binging Golden Girls tomorrow.” 

Andrew turns to Neil and says, “Four old women who live together in Florida in the 80s.”

“Great,” Neil says flatly. “Can’t wait. We don’t have paper. Everyone just text me your guesses.”

Andrew writes his favorite, then chooses Blanche for Allison and Dorothy for Kevin. He puts his phone back into his pocket and waits for Kevin to finish typing his guesses one agonizing letter at a time. 

Eventually, all answers in, Neil flips through the texts quickly. “Okay,” he says, holding up a preventatively calming hand towards the group. “Andrew wins. Allison and Kevin tie.” 

“I demand a review of these results,” Allison says. 

“You put Blanche as your favorite and both Andrew and Kevin guessed that for you. Kevin put Dorothy as his favorite and both you and Andrew guessed that for him. Andrew put Rose. You guessed Sophia and Kevin guessed Dorothy.”

“ _Rose_?” Allison spits incredulously. “Give me that.” 

Neil shrugs, handing over his phone to Allison, who taps rapidly through all three text threads before passing it to Kevin’s grabbing hands and pointing a finger sharply at Andrew. 

“You just said that so we’d lose,” she says. “There’s no fucking way it’s Rose.”

Andrew raises one shoulder, projecting bored indifference with every fiber of his being. “I don’t cheat.” 

“Explain,” Kevin demands. 

“She lives authentically,” Andrew says. “She’s the only one who doesn’t try to be something different. And Betty White is an icon.” 

“You have got to be kidding me,” Kevin says. He hands Neil’s phone to Andrew, who taps through the messages idly. 

“I guess it makes a certain kind of sense,” Allison says, suddenly smiling very widely. “I mean, he definitely has a type.” 

Andrew would tell her to fuck off or say something very cutting or condescendingly pretend to comfort Neil for being called out on his obvious idiocy, he totally would, except—-”Neil,” Andrew says, holding the phone screen up for him to see. “Am I the knife emoji in your contacts?”

“Oh. Um,” Neil says, his eyes darting away quickly. 

Allison, mid-sip, starts choking on her drink. Kevin helpfully pounds away at her back to clear the airway, so hard he’s clearly just making it worse. Neil, who is now pinned by Andrew’s very direct gaze, flushes and shrugs helplessly. “It was the first text you sent me. The knife emojis.”

Andrew thinks what he’s feeling must be an exact mix of exasperation and affection. He stares, watching with fascination as Neil’s cheeks burn hotter, and then finally gives up. “Come here,” he says, grabbing the bottom of Neil’s chair to drag him closer. 

Allison, across from him, thuds to the ground in a fit of drunken laughter. 

“Give it to me,” Kevin says imperiously. “I’ll fix it.”

Andrew intercepts the phone before Kevin can hand it back to Neil and squints at his new contact name: C A R D I O.

He flips Kevin off just in time for Allison to right herself in her chair and hold her drink aloft. “Okay,” she says, still faintly gasping for breath. “Fine. I buy it. To Rose!”

Andrew raises his own glass. These people are ridiculous. The guy pulling his hand into his lap under the table is an unrepentant idiot. He should probably leave immediately and block all of their numbers. Instead, he slides his hand to the inside of Neil’s thigh and listens as they start arguing about which Hogwarts house each of them would belong to. He contributes only to interrupt the heated debate about whether he’s a Hufflepuff or a Slytherin to tell them Hogwarts is an overly restrictive institution that pigeonholes students into damaging stereotypes and endangers their lives for fun.

. : : .

“I’m thinking about proposing to Katelyn,” Aaron says.

“Wow,” Andrew says drily. “Moving a little fast, aren’t you?”

Aaron sighs heavily. “Who was it that talked about the cow wanting you to buy it?”

“John Mulaney. Is Katelyn mooing?”

“Not really. I just want to. We’d talked about doing it after we were done with school, but I’m tired of waiting.”

Andrew had not initially been a fan, to put it mildly, but Katelyn has grown on him over the years. The emphasis for the purposes of this conversation being _years_. “Then you should do it,” Andrew says. “Are you going to make a spectacle of yourself?”

“I may express an emotion or two, yes,” Aaron says. 

“Disgusting.”

“Proposing means wedding stuff, though. Wedding showers. Rehearsal dinners. Bachelor parties. I know it’s a lot.” 

Andrew tries to read between the lines of what Aaron is saying. He comes up with: _best man_. But it could be going either way—Aaron asking him or Aaron trying to rationalize asking someone else. Andrew waits him out. 

“Do you think,” Aaron says haltingly. “No pressure. But would you want to be involved?”

“Yes,” Andrew says without hesitation. 

“Like, uh, how involved?”

“Aaron,” Andrew says flatly. 

“Fine. Would you want to be my best man?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says again, simply and with certainty. “If she says yes.”

“Right,” Aaron says. He sounds relieved. “If she says yes.”

“We’ve all made a happy birthday sign,” Andrew deadpans. 

Aaron laughs. “Yeah, okay, I get it. Don’t get ahead of myself.” 

“Aaron,” Andrew says, then hesitates over to express his gladness for Aaron, his acceptance of Katelyn, his willingness to put himself through the wedding wringer for them both. Eventually, he says, “She’ll say yes.”

Aaron exhales heavily and says, “Thank you. I’ll let you know what happens.”

He tries to occupy himself with a few mindless and mildly important tasks after they hang up. Aaron wasn’t wrong—all those parties and travel and that socializing is going to be a nightmare. He’ll be forced out of his comfortable corner by wedding duties, forced to endure inane discussions about the happy couple with what he assumes will be a small herd of Katelyn’s relatives. He sees himself there, alone, drinking whiskey like water to fortify his control through waves of small talk and then, suddenly, he sees himself there...not alone. With Neil. Who always finds his way to Andrew’s side. Who could run interference and solicit family stories and make their excuses politely if Andrew needed to get away from it all. 

The problem with that is, of course, that Neil wouldn’t get lost as just another date. Their family consists of him, Aaron, Nicky, and Erik—that’s it. Adding Neil to that mix in that context, he thinks, would be making some kind of declaration about the seriousness or permanence of this thing they’re doing. 

It would be something, quite frankly, that none of them have ever done before. Aaron and Katelyn had latched onto each other in college but she’d been there peripherally before it became a big thing. Nicky had already planned his wedding, honeymoon, first, fifth, tenth, and twenty-fifth anniversaries with Erik before he’d come into their lives. None of them has ever _brought a boy home_ in the way that Andrew would be. Because it’s him, it would be especially conspicuous. 

What they’re doing now is good. He’s already giving Neil everything he’s equipped to give. Folding him into a big family event like this would put too much pressure on it. Neil might get the wrong idea. 

Andrew resolves not to involve their thing in any of it. 

He does pick up his phone, though, and text Neil.

 **A** : Aaron is proposing to Katelyn 

**N** : Is this a congratulations thing or should I grab a shovel?

 **A** : They’re good together  
**A** : Very boring  
**A** : They have a minivan already

 **N** : Really??

 **A** : No. Don’t be stupid  
**A** : I’m setting a mood 

**N** : Don’t knock minivans. You can live comfortably in a minivan.

 **A** : maybe you can

 **N** : I guess if we’re not killing her you won’t have to find out

 **A** : He asked me to be best man

 **N** : What did you say?

 **A** : Yes  
**A** : Nightmare  
**A** : But yes

 **N** : You’ll be amazing  
**N** : Think about how many of her relatives you can fool into thinking you’re Aaron

 **A** : If she says yes 

**N** : Right  
**N** : Wait does this mean you get to plan a bachelor party?

Andrew’s mouth quirks into a smile helplessly as their message window starts to fill up with absurd links—a place where you can rent a monkey, something called human powered bumper cars, palm-readers, a tiny speakeasy with a burlesque show, a place to rent those weird streetcar-type things that everyone has to pedal like a bicycle.

This fucking man.

. : : .

Before Neil, Andrew had never done the stumbling through the apartment thing—the kissing and breaking lamps and running into furniture.

That’s still not exactly something he does, because Neil is as graceful backwards as he is forwards, and they always end up at the bed or the couch without Andrew having to notice the journey at all. He keeps his hands tucked in Neil’s pockets and lets him lead the way—they make it the fifteen steps from his front door into his bedroom in a matter of seconds, no stumbling, no collisions, no broken lamps. Just Neil dropping back into the bed and reaching for Andrew, who’s already following. He settles himself against Neil, bracing with one hand and sliding the other under Neil’s shirt. Neil’s skin is warm and lined with scars as familiar to Andrew at this point as his own. He pushes up a little when Neil hitches his knees over Andrew’s hips, shifting higher so that Neil has to tip his head back a little to kiss him, pliant and sweet and heated.

Nicky hadn’t been wrong about Andrew’s roster of carefully selected hook-up partners. He and Neil haven’t done anything Andrew hasn’t done before, except for how everything they do is something Andrew hasn’t done before. The word, he knows, is intimacy—there’s a closeness and a trust to all of it that does something entirely foreign to Andrew’s militant control. It’s not _lost_ , exactly, but it is set aside as temporarily unnecessary. 

It’s the kind of intense it always is. Neil becomes the oxygen in the room. He arches, making space for Andrew to splay a hand across his lower back. The world narrows so easily to this—the yielding heat of Neil’s mouth, Neil’s hands gently cradling Andrew’s face, the slow, rhythmic slide of Neil’s body beneath him. 

That narrowness is why the vibration of his phone in his back pocket throws him, making him pull away quickly in surprise.

He digs it out, irritated but not surprised to see that Aaron is FaceTiming him again. He quickly shows the screen to Neil, who nods, and then sits back on his heels in the space between Neil’s legs to answer it. 

He realizes only after he accepts the call that he looks exactly like he’s been doing what he’s been doing. His hair is a mess, his mouth red, the skin around it a little pink, the color high on his cheeks. 

“What?” he says.

Aaron’s face fills with evil glee. “Am I interrupting something?” 

“Yes,” Andrew says. He rubs his free hand up and down the inside of the leg Neil still has propped against him. “What do you want?”

“Is the boyfriend there?” Aaron asks, then holds up an apologetic hand immediately. “Sorry, sorry. Not a boyfriend. I know.” 

Andrew feels Neil go suddenly still beneath his hand but he refuses to look at him. He busies himself with glaring at Aaron instead. “I’m hanging up.”

“She said yes,” Aaron says quickly, his face brightening to a level of incandescence that Andrew finds, frankly, extremely off-putting. 

Neil, moving very carefully, eases off the bed. He puts a hand on Andrew’s arm and lightly squeezes before slipping out of the room. Andrew knows, of course, that the ‘not boyfriends’ thing is possibly at least a little bit news to Neil. They’ve never used the word. They’ve never agreed to any kind of specific relationship. But the common understanding of what they’re doing would probably fall under that category. 

“Congratulations,” he says. He’s both impatient to get off the phone and go deal with this Neil shit and reluctantly interested in staying on the phone so that Aaron can tell him the whole story. He decides to stay. He is either a great brother or a coward.

After Aaron has told him every tiny detail he can remember and hung up to call Nicky, Andrew finds Neil sitting cross-legged in the corner of the couch, a bottle of water in his hand. He watches Andrew calmly but quietly as he comes and sits at the other end of the couch, his hands folded, his gaze steady.

“I don’t do relationships,” Andrew says flatly. “It’s a bullshit concept. It’s meaningless.” 

And this? This is exactly why he doesn’t. The most likely outcomes of this conversation are either crying or yelling. Neil is watching him with cool, serious eyes. Andrew has never liked the defensive position, so he prepares to go on the offensive, gearing up to respond to either option, the tension of the inevitable fight coiling in his stomach unpleasantly.

And then—then, Neil shrugs and says, “Okay.” 

Andrew stares. “Okay,” he repeats. 

“Yeah. Okay,” Neil says. “ I didn’t know what anything was or could be when we first met. I got time to figure it out. You get time too.”

“I don’t need time,” Andrew says pointedly.

“Okay,” Neil answers, still sounding unconcerned. “It doesn’t change anything. We do this for as long as it works for both of us.” 

Andrew finds himself still staring. He tells himself to stop, but that, for once, does not work. 

“Soooo,” Neil says, after a very long moment of silence. “I mean, congratulations to Aaron, but how dead is the mood now?” 

Andrew has to cover his face with his hand to hide the irrepressible quirk of his lips. He says, “Junkie,” derisively, but he also tugs at Neil until he climbs into Andrew’s lap and ducks to kiss him. 

Later, with Neil sprawled between him and the door, Andrew lies awake and watches him sleep in the lines of light that slant through the blinds. This—sharing a bed with someone—is something Andrew never thought he’d be able to do, much less _want_ to do. And yet, here he is. Neil never feels like danger. He feels like Andrew has finally actually found someone who can take a shift on watch.

. : : .

“What do you do at noon?” Neil asks. “Discover new lunch spots, try a new recipe at home, have a picnic, or fish for lunch.” 

“Fish for lunch,” Andrew answers. 

“You know how to fish?” Neil asks. 

“No,” Andrew says. He reaches up and lightly flicks Neil’s wrist when his hand stops carding through Andrew’s hair. Neil starts moving it again immediately, twisting the strands gently around his fingers.

“Okay, we’ll just go hungry. 4pm. Do you chill on the porch, garden in the backyard, surf on the beach, or discover new reads?” 

“What do you think?”

“Chill on the porch,” Neil says wryly. “With a cigarette.” 

Andrew makes a finger gun, cocking it and aiming it vaguely towards Neil’s line of sight. His head is pillowed on Neil’s stomach, so he feels more than hears the small huff of laughter Neil lets out. Neil had insisted on flopping mostly in the shade, so the light that makes it through Andrew’s eyelids is dappled and dancing, but he is also not burning to a crisp.

“7pm,” Neil says. “BBQ, Walk on the beach during sunset, happy hour, or get ready for a fancy dinner?” 

That one takes a little more thought. On the one hand, alcohol. On the other hand—no, never mind. “Happy hour,” Andrew says. 

“Last one. 10pm. Stargazing, Getting ready to go out, sipping wine at home, or late night cinema?” 

Another hard question. He would have been anti-stargazing if you’d asked him an hour ago. But now, sprawled on the grass on campus during their overlapping free time, Neil’s hand in his hair, the sun warming his legs, he thinks he could maybe get behind it. 

He hums. “You pick. Stargazing or late night cinema.” 

“I think,” Neil says thoughtfully, “maybe stargazing. Like this, but at night. And we could bring alcohol with us. Okay, Buzzfeed says that in ten years...you will be living in Lake Tahoe, California. ‘You’ll be enjoying the tranquil, nature-driven lifestyle in the mountains and woods. You’ll have picturesque views at your disposal.” 

“What about you?”

“Lake Tahoe, California.” 

“Idiot,” Andrew huffs. “Take the dumb quiz.”

Neil digs his hand deeper into Andrew’s hair and lightly scratches at his scalp for a minute, and then he says, “Boulder, Colorado. They’re not wrong about the hiking trails.” 

Andrew considers. “Either way,” he says, “we’re going to be old hippies.”

He’s stepping into the classroom for his next seminar when Neil’s text comes through: a picture he must have taken of Andrew, his head tipped back on Neil’s stomach like a pillow, his eyes closed. Neil’s fingers are loosely wound in his hair. His crossed ankles and sneakers are a little blurry in the background. Andrew hesitates over it for a moment and then taps decisively, forwarding it to Nicky. 

The string of rainbows and crying and heart-eye emojis he gets as a response almost makes him regret his choices.

. : : .

Andrew wakes from a fitful sleep to a violent pounding on his front door. His sheets are damp with the sweat that coats his skin even as he shivers. He gropes for the phone on his nightstand and squints at the display: 1:43. There’s a daytime amount of the light in the room, so it must be afternoon. Beneath the time are three missed calls and seven missed texts from Neil. Andrew waits to see if the pounding will go away. When it doesn’t, he lurches out of bed and into the freezing air of his apartment, shuffling miserably to the front door, which he opens to a very concerned-looking Neil.

“You look like shit,” Neil says, frowning. “Are you sick?”

“No,” Andrew says. He follows this with a fit of hollow, wet coughing. When he recovers, Neil is still standing in his hallway, frowning. Andrew gives him his best go-away face and asks, “Why are you here?”

“You weren’t answering your texts. And then you weren’t at the coffee shop. And then you weren’t answering calls. I was worried.”

“Well,” Andrew says, “as you can see, I’m fine.”

Neil’s frown intensifies. He points decisively towards the couch and says, “Go lie down” in a tone that Andrew is more familiar with coming out of his own mouth. Reluctantly, he shuffles couch-ways and grabs a blanket, wrapping himself up in it and flopping onto the cushions. It’s entirely too cold in his apartment. Probably he’ll have to call the super and get him to adjust the heat. 

Perhaps a bit too late, it occurs to him that it’s almost May.

Neil looks up from where he’s been tapping away at his phone. “I’m going to turn on hot water in the shower. Let it get steamed up and then get in. I’m going to grab some stuff.” 

Andrew glares, but the effect is annoyingly diminished by another coughing fit. Neil ignores it entirely and steps through to the bathroom, closing the door on the sound of running water when he emerges. He grabs Andrew’s keys out of the bowl on the counter and waves them at him. “Ten minutes,” he says. “Don’t slip and fall.”

Andrew glares at Neil’s back as he steps out into the hallway. That one was much more effective but Neil doesn’t even see it. What a waste of anger. 

He does follow the lure of a hot shower, though, shuffling towards the bathroom and dropping his blanket outside the door before he climbs in and lets the hot water chase the ice out of his bones. Breathing feels a little easier, too. It’s possible Neil is right—Andrew might be sick. Being right does not necessitate being _here_ , though, which Andrew will tell Neil as soon as he gets back. He will conquer this with force of will and whiskey, like he always does.

He stands under the water for as long as it stays hot and then reluctantly climbs out. There’s a soft knock on the door when the shower stops and Neil, from the other side, says, “I grabbed you clean clothes. I can pass them through the door.”

Andrew considers the damp pile of what he’d had on before he got into the shower and, grudgingly, opens the door a crack and takes what Neil hands him: underwear, thick flannel pajama pants, and his softest long-sleeve shirt. It’s the one that typically has Neil rubbing his face on it like a cat, so he shouldn’t be surprised that it was the choice for comfort clothing. He manages to half dry his hair and emerges, feeling a little less like falling over, to find Neil leaning against the counter with a variety of random-looking shit in front of him. 

“Have you eaten?” Neil asks. 

“Not hungry.” 

Neil pushes aside a box of saltines and a large container of deli soup and grabs another, smaller box, opening it and tapping out a thermometer. “I assume you know how to use this.”

Andrew glares but snatches it out of Neil’s hand and pops it into his mouth. While they wait, Neil digs around in his shopping bag and emerges with a bottle full of lurid orange liquid. Andrew glares harder, putting his all into it until the thermometer beeps and Neil slides it neatly out of his mouth. 

“101.7,” Neil says pointedly. 

Andrew narrows his eyes to focus the glaring more intently on Neil, who ignores him and pours out a little cup of orange liquid. 

“Take this,” Neil says, nudging it across the counter towards Andrew.

“I hate you,” Andrew says. 

“Cool,” Neil says. He nudges the little cup closer to Andrew, who relents and takes it. Not because he’s doing what Neil said. Not because he needs taking care of. Just because he happened to be out of whatever daytime cold and flu monstrosity this is and now it has conveniently appeared. 

Once he’s swallowed it, Neil slides one of Andrew’s favorite pink Powerades across the counter and watches, calmly determined, as Andrew takes a few large swallows. He hadn’t realized how _thirsty_ he was before he’d taken the medicine. 

“Bed,” Neil says. “Let’s go.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’ll wait until you pass out on the floor and carry you there.” 

Andrew considers. “I really do hate you.” 

“Hate me from bed,” Neil says. He grabs a blue jar from the counter and gestures for Andrew to walk. 

He does, but only because being upright this long is making his head spin and his couch is too small to stretch out on. To his horror, he finds that the sheets have been changed and the duvet is spread out smoothly. Andrew is going to kill him. Neil steps around him and grabs the covers, pulling them back so that Andrew can crawl across the bed and against the wall. Which he does. With the protective dignity of his anger. 

“I got this stuff,” Neil says, holding up the jar of Vicks. “The internet said to rub it on your chest.” 

“Did you Google what to do with sick people?” Andrew accuses. 

“Yes,” Neil says. “Can I touch your chest?”

Andrew considers. He doesn’t have any memories of loving maternal types gently nurturing him when he was sick, but even he knows about the allegedly all-mighty power of this shit. He pulls up his shirt and, when Neil doesn’t move, says, “Yes.” He tries to sigh but it just induces another fit of coughing. 

Neil climbs in after him and scoops out what seems like an excessive amount to Andrew. When he starts rubbing it in, though, it’s this wonderful hot-cold feeling that sinks deep into his skin. Neil’s hands are more clinical than comforting, efficient and not lingering. Andrew feels a deep spark of gratitude for that and closes his eyes, focusing on the steady circles Neil is rubbing into his chest. He opens them when Neil’s hand lifts away and doesn’t return. 

“The internet also said to rub it on your feet,” Neil says matter-of-factly. “Can I do that?”

“My feet?” Andrew asks skeptically. 

“It might be bullshit, but a bunch of grandmas said it helps with coughing.” 

What the fuck, Andrew thinks. He says, “Sure,” and angles his body so that Neil can pull the sheets back enough and rub. The menthol feels weird on his feet—weird, but not bad. Once he finishes, Neil grabs a pair of dumb, fuzzy rainbow socks he must have unearthed from the bottom of Andrew’s sock drawer and carefully rolls them onto Andrew’s feet. 

“I can put on my own socks,” Andrew says, annoyed. 

“I know,” Neil says, “I’ve seen you do it.” He finishes and gently pushes Andrew’s feet back under the covers. “I’ll be right back.”

Andrew lies there and tries to take stock of his body after the rapid changes of the last 45 minutes. He feels...less sticky. Less cold. Breathing is a little bit easier. It’s still shitty, though. He hates that Neil is here to see him like this, but he also does not hate that Neil is here. The last thing Andrew needs is to be taken care of, but he has to admit that Neil just accomplished a lot more in under an hour than Andrew has all day. He’ll allow it, he decides. But he’ll get his revenge later. 

When Neil comes back, he has another Powerade, a sleeve of Saltines, and his laptop. He deposits the food on the nightstand and stops at the edge of the mattress with the laptop in his hands. “Can I get into bed with you?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. He doesn’t even have to think about it. He just wants it to happen.

Neil eases into bed next to him, flicks off the lamp and opens the laptop, which he props up on one bent knee so that Andrew can see the screen easily. He clicks into Netflix and puts on _The Great British Bake Off_. Andrew keeps himself as separate as the bed will allow, his back against the wall on principle. But he can feel Neil’s body heat even from this far away. It promises so much more warmth than the blanket alone. He gives in and shifts closer, rolling against Neil’s side and mentally daring him to make some kind of comment about it. Instead, Neil rearranges himself so that Andrew can pillow his head on his shoulder and uses that arm to tuck and hold the blankets close to Andrew’s body. 

“It’s Wednesday,” Andrew mumbles. “You need to go to your 3:30 class.”

“Shhh,” Neil says. “You’re delirious.”

Andrew falls asleep before they even finish the signature bake, lulled by the sound of Neil’s heartbeat and the unusual tones of Noel Fielding’s voice.

. : : .

Aaron starts talking as soon as Andrew answers the phone. 

“So,” he says, sounding very much like he’s compulsively tapping his foot somewhere in Chicago. “The engagement party is in five weeks. Nicky says he can make it. Can you make it?”

“Yes,” Andrew says. He is a little amused despite himself. 

“Her parents are paying for most of it, obviously, but we have some savings so we can pay for your hotel rooms.” 

“I will pay for my own hotel room,” Andrew says. 

“You know,” Aaron says, letting out a heavy breath in a rush. “I knew she’d probably say yes. But I still can’t believe she said yes.” 

Andrew considers. “That’s stupid.”

“I forgot. You’re the relationship expert.” 

“You’re forgiven.” 

Aaron snorts. “Are you still spending all your time with this Neil guy?”

Andrew doesn’t know if he’d say he spends _all_ of his time with Neil. A lot of it, sure. And more of it texting him. And a great deal of it thinking about him. Some of that time in the shower. He can’t answer Aaron’s question without admitting more than he’d like to, so he stays quiet. 

“That’s what I thought,” Aaron says. “I’ll start taking your advice once you can actually admit you have a boyfriend.” 

“I don’t do ‘boyfriends.’” 

“Or,” Aaron asks, like the shit-stirrer he is, “do you just not _say_ ‘boyfriends’?” 

If they were on FaceTime, Andrew thinks his glare would be truly impressive. As it is, Aaron does not fully know the error of his ways.

“Are you bringing him?” Aaron asks. “To the engagement party.” 

“No,” Andrew says without hesitation. “Are we done now?”

Aaron half laughs. “No way. I have a list of dessert options I need your opinion on. The in-laws think we should do a traditional cake, but Katelyn likes the idea of cupcakes. Nicky keeps asking for a chocolate fountain. One of the caterers does these little one-bite square cheesecakes.”

. : : .

Neil is already gone by the time Andrew wakes in the warm strip of light coming through the window. The empty bed next to him is cool. Neil is already out on his run. Andrew flops onto his back and stares at the ceiling while he musters up the motivation to put on a shirt and go navigate Allison’s fancy coffee appliances. 

When he does, he finds Kevin collapsed on the couch, miserably groggy, huddled over a giant mug of coffee. “He’s still out,” Kevin tells him. “Coffee’s in the pot.”

Andrew treks blearily to the kitchen and pours his own mug about half full, adding a couple of spoonfuls of sugar and a generous amount of the chocolate caramel creamer that Neil keeps in the fridge for him. After that, he flops at the opposite end of the couch from Kevin and props his feet up on the coffee table. 

“You seem good,” Kevin says. “You and him.” 

Andrew shoots a wary glance his way. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing,” Kevin says defensively. “You’re hard to make small talk with.” 

“That is not an accident,” Andrew says pointedly. 

“Fine,” Kevin huffs. “We can watch TV.”

“TV is boring,” Andrew says. He sips from his mug and waits expectantly for Kevin to come up with another suggestion.

“Your brother,” Kevin says, brightening like he’s just had an epiphany. “He’s getting married.” 

“Yes,” Andrew agrees. 

Kevin’s enthusiasm leaks away. “You’re being difficult.”

“Yes,” Andrew agrees again. 

Kevin just glares, so Andrew takes another sip and relents. “In Chicago,” he says. “The engagement party is next month.”

Kevin asks, “Are you taking Neil?”

Andrew’s leg twitches. He affects an interest in his mug. “No.”

“Oh,” Kevin says, sounding nonplussed. “I, uh—why not?”

“Why would I?”

Kevin blinks. It looks like this thought has never occurred to him. “Because,” he says slowly, “that stuff is stressful. And he’s your...person. Isn’t he?”

Andrew wants to tell Kevin that he does not _need_ a person and therefore he does not _have_ a person. Instead of answering, he pushes it back on Kevin. “What exactly is that dubious title supposed to indicate?”

He likes this deeply uncomfortable look on Kevin’s face. It’s almost better than the outrage Andrew so happily and skillfully inspires in him. 

Kevin hesitates and then says, “The person you take to shitty family gatherings to make them less shitty. The person who’s there when you need support.”

“I don’t need anything,” Andrew says.

“Okay,” Kevin says skeptically. “If you say so.” 

His _person_. He knows Kevin was going for the vaguest possessive descriptor possible, but it still prickles Andrew unpleasantly. Maybe it is the nature of the possession that shuts him down so emphatically. Andrew has never _had_ things. He’s never needed things. He’s been needed. He’s been the solution to people’s problems before. But he’s never looked for one for himself. Because he doesn’t need one.

He frowns into his mug for a while, ignoring Kevin’s yawning at the other end of the couch. They hear the footsteps in the hallway at the same time and, embarrassingly, both perk up like dogs whose owner is coming home. Andrew sends an accusing look towards Kevin, but can’t resist returning his attention to the door when Neil comes in. He’s walking a tiny bit weird, Andrew thinks. Not a limp, but...not as loose as he usually is.

“How was it?” Kevin asks, frowning a little. 

“Slow,” Neil says.

“You look tight,” Kevin says. “Come here. Get on the ground.”

Andrew watches with mild interest as Neil eases himself onto the floor in front of the TV. Within seconds, Kevin has Neil’s leg up in the air and is pressed against it, pushing Neil’s thigh down to his chest. These are the kinds of stretches people used to giggle about in high school—bodies close and interlocking. It’s so close that it really should be intimate. And it is, Andrew supposes, but not in a sexual way. 

This is the kind of touching that Neil had learned to be comfortable with before they met. This casual, innocent way of being close to people that doesn’t put him on guard. The sex stuff he’d had to learn and Andrew, all ego aside, likes to think he’s been an exemplary facilitator for that knowledge. This stuff, though—the closeness, the non-sexual, non-threatening touching, the purposeless contact—this is the kind of physicality that Andrew has no experience with. Or maybe he does, now. He watches Kevin press down on Neil’s thighs and thinks about lying around in the grass, the occasional hand-holding, the week they spent mostly sleeping in the same bed without fucking around while Andrew was sick. He thinks about Neil leaning on him in booths at bars, about wrapping an arm around Neil’s waist to keep him steady and upright on subways. 

Maybe they’d been so aware of what Andrew has been teaching Neil that he hadn’t noticed what Neil was teaching him.

. : : .

“Listening” would be too generous a term to describe what Andrew is doing as Kevin alternately details and justifies the varied and numerous historical inaccuracies in _Hamilton_. He’s definitely hearing the words, but they blend like some kind of white noise machine that accompanies the random roaming of Andrew’s thoughts. He’s occupying himself by staring blankly into the middle distance instead, shaken out of it only by Allison’s snapping fingers in front of his face. He turns to her, disapproving. 

“Andrew,” she says, in a tone that suggests it’s not the first time. “You’d better go get your boy.”

On the one hand, he does not have a _boy_. On the other, where the fuck is Neil? He follows Allison’s gaze to find Neil shoved into a tight space at the bar with a guy that predictably has several inches on him. He has what looks like a firm grip on Neil’s arm, though he’s smiling widely and laughing a little. 

Andrew recognizes the dangerously mutinous lines of Neil’s body even from their table. He slides off his stool quickly and winds his way through the crowd—with brute force when necessary. By the time he gets there, the guy is sliding his hand up Neil’s arm in a way he probably imagines is seductive. Andrew jostles it out of the way when he slides between them, half obscuring Neil with his body. 

He’s not a jealous man. Well, he’s never _been_ a jealous man. But this isn’t about jealousy. This is about the knife-happy look in Neil’s eyes and Andrew’s lack of interest in spending the night talking to the police. 

“Oh,” the guy says, taking a quick half-step back. “Sorry, didn’t realize he had a boyfriend.”

Andrew considers saying fuck it and handing Neil one of his knives.

“Excuse me,” Neil says icily. “This is not my _boyfriend_.”

“Oh,” the guy says. He looks confused by the words in combination with Neil’s tone and Andrew’s body language.

“This is my _dungeon master_ ,” Neil says. Andrew can tell he’s not really outraged, but he doesn’t think this guy has anything close to a clue. He leans a little back against Neil and manages to keep his face blank when Neil adds, “You owe him the respect of a proper apology.”

“Uh,” the guy says, looking back and forth between them. Andrew decides to help him out by casually flexing his fingers like he’s about to start throwing punches. 

“Shit,” the guy says, falling over his words. “I’m very sorry, uh, sir dungeon master? I didn’t mean to insult you or your…” he trails off, looking at Neil in the hopes of an assist on the title.

Neil stays silent, his body tight, and the guy finally throws his hands up and flees into the crowd. 

Andrew watches him until he disappears and then turns to Neil. Very evenly, he says, “Dungeon master?”

“It was all I could think of,” Neil says, shrugging. “Well, that or priest. I couldn’t come up with a way to say ‘psychiatric chaperone’ that wasn’t clunky.”

“You need a chaperone,” Andrew counters. “I can’t take you anywhere.”

Neil’s smile is quick and blinding. “Did you come over here to protect me from him or to protect him from me?”

“It’s promising that you’re asking yourself that question. It shows growth.”

“Or,” Neil says, musingly, “did you just think I was taking too long with your drinks.”

“Do you even know what D&D is?”

“Yeah.” Neil shrugs. “It was in that show with the weird upside down monsters.”

 _Stranger Things_ , Andrew mentally translates. He says, “You were taking too long with the drinks.” 

Neil grins again and turns back to the bar. Andrew watches his profile and wonders how this person has become such an intrinsic part of his life. Neil, who shares his general misanthropy but is always blindingly happy to see Andrew, who can fuck off when necessary without bitching about it later, who shuts other people down with flat indifference but falls apart easily under Andrew’s hands. Andrew sometimes feels like they belong on that subreddit of objects that somehow just happen to fit together perfectly. He would never admit it to anyone, but he feels that same sense of unravelling satisfaction whenever their sharper edges slip easily past each other, leaving no damage behind.

He takes the tray when Neil turns with it and nods towards their table. “Do you think you can walk twenty feet without getting into trouble?”

“I don’t know,” Neil says thoughtfully. “Let’s find out.”

. : : .

The day is shitty. He gets into a weird academic pissing contest with this woman in his class, which shouldn’t really bother him, except he’d already missed two buses and a train on his way to campus, which meant he didn’t have time to stop and grab a giant coffee, and then on top of all of that, they’re coming up on an intensive unit on abuse in the foster system. He’s going to have to listen to a bunch of people talk out of their ass about it like it’s an abstract.

Aaron’s engagement party is eight days away, which means Andrew’s flight to Chicago is seven days away, and the closer he gets to it the heavier the pit in his stomach becomes. He reaches the point at which his and Neil’s paths usually diverge and stops in the middle of the walkway, bracing against the flow of people shouldering and cursing their way past him. If he heads left, he’ll be at his apartment in twenty minutes. If he heads right, he’ll be at Neil’s in fifteen. 

It shouldn’t even be a question. He should go directly home and drink and read something shameful and take care of his own fucking mood. But something in him resists the left turn. He tries to shrug it off, makes a decision, and heads to the train. 

Fifteen minutes later, he stands in front of Neil’s door and silently berates himself for coming here. He should turn around and go home. He shouldn’t rely on anyone else to manage his feelings. He lifts his hand and knocks. 

It’s Kevin who answers, looking not particularly surprised to see him. “Living room,” Kevin says, nodding in that direction. “I’m cooking. Do you want artichoke flatbread?”

The answer to this should be obvious, so he slides past Kevin and strides into the living room. He realizes when he stops that his fingers are drumming restlessly at his thigh. Now that he’s here, he’s even more torn about what he wants. He doesn’t want to make a space on this couch and watch whatever idiotic thing Kevin and Neil have on. He doesn’t want to retreat to Neil’s bed and gaze into each other’s eyes. He also doesn’t want to go home and be alone.

Neil looks up, evaluates, and asks, calmly, “Fire escape?”

And—yes. Andrew nods once, decisively, and follows Neil down the hall to his bedroom. He climbs out onto the metal while Neil grabs a couple of blankets, arranging himself in the spot he prefers, his back against the wall, his feet braced against the railing.

Neil crawls out after him and drops a blanket around Andrew’s shoulders before folding his up and sitting on it. He’s close but not too close. Andrew can feel the fabric of their shirts brushing, but not the heat of Neil’s arm. He lights a cigarette with a vicious flick of the lighter, dropping the pack on Neil’s blanket for safekeeping. 

For a while, they just sit there. Neil, with his head tipped back, watching the sunset creep in around the buildings that obstruct their view. Andrew, smoking in search of his usual calm control. Eventually, when his fingers feel less restless, he puts out the cigarette and leans tentatively against Neil’s side. He’s expecting—he doesn’t know. Some attempt to cuddle, maybe? Some initiation of conversation or expression of concern. Instead, Neil stays solid and still; he doesn’t move or soften when Andrew slumps heavily against him. Even when Andrew, wary of sudden movements, experimentally drops his head to Neil’s shoulder. 

Neil hasn’t said a word. He hasn’t asked about Andrew’s mood, tried to make small talk about the weather, or spouted any inane platitudes. He’s just...there. Steady and solid and holding Andrew up like it’s normal. Effortless.

“I want you to come with me to Chicago,” Andrew says. “For the engagement party.”

He knows it’s only a week away. He knows Neil doesn’t have a plane ticket and he probably doesn’t have engagement party clothes. He knows he’s pointedly not invited Neil or discussed the specifics of his travel plans for over a month now.

He also knows that Kevin was right—Neil is the person Andrew would go to if he wanted to make a shitty experience less shitty. He waits, impatient and itchy, while Neil spends some time thinking about what Andrew assumes are all the things _he_ just thought about. 

After a minute, Neil says, “Yes. I’ll come.”

Something about that hard yes smooths the prickly parts of Andrew’s feelings about this whole situation in a way that a _yeah_ or a _sure_ would not have. He leaves his head on Neil’s shoulder and closes his eyes, trying to visualize being with Neil at the party, in the hotel, on the plane. He can’t come up with anything specific, but it’s more of a pleasant hum than the tightly coiling nerves he’s been nurturing for the last couple of weeks. 

Later, after they’ve eaten Kevin’s annoyingly tasty artichoke flatbread, Andrew follows Neil to his bedroom and pulls on one of the pairs of pajama pants he keeps there. There’s a heaviness and heat to his blood that’s telling. He keeps his hands and his eyes to himself, but Neil must sense it because he rolls over to face Andrew after they slide into bed. 

Andrew traces Neil’s jaw, the curve of his neck, the slope of his shoulder. He lets his hand slide lower, over Neil’s hip and then around his waist, but he waits for Neil‘s whispered “Yes” before he pulls him close and brushes their mouths together. 

He keeps it slow by sheer force of will, resisting the desire to tumble Neil onto his back and push his hand down, resisting the urge to pull Neil’s leg more across his hip and grind his thigh until Neil is panting and desperate. Touching him like this still feels like a fantasy sometimes, like it can’t be real that he can want this and have it and keep it. He lets the world winnow down to Neil’s mouth, the press of their bodies together, their tangled legs; he holds Neil tight and close and kisses him hard, with an intensity that he continues to surprise himself with. 

Slow works until Neil breathes Andrew’s name in a way that always goes straight to his dick. It’s more of an exhale than a word, and Andrew hears himself make a rough, possessive noise as he rolls Neil onto his back. Something primitive in him thrills at having Neil like this, beneath him, loose and turned on and breathing hard. He pushes Neil’s shirt up and tries to tear his mouth away but Neil makes it hard, chasing him and winding his fingers into Andrew’s hair to keep him close. 

“Pushy,” Andrew mumbles. Neil drops his head back and loosens his fingers, so Andrew is able to duck and press a kiss against Neil’s sternum, dragging his mouth down to bite lightly at the taut skin above the waist of Neil’s pajama pants. “Yes or no?” 

“Fuck.” 

He looks up to see Neil watching him, his pupils wide, his bottom lip between his teeth. Neil takes a very deep breath and says, “Yes.” 

The noise Neil makes when Andrew takes him into his mouth is one he knows he’ll hold onto forever.

. : : .

He waits until he, Aaron, and Nicky are all on a video call before announcing that he’s bringing Neil. Nicky, predictably, is thrilled. Aaron seems more skeptical. 

“I thought he wasn’t a boyfriend?” Aaron asks.

“I thought that wasn’t any of your business.” 

Nicky sighs and waves on screen for their attention. “Play nice. Andrew, it’s great that you’re bringing him. I’m sure we’ll both be thrilled to meet him.”

“Will we?” Aaron asks. “Or will we be flashing back to this moment a week from now with a voiceover saying this is where it all went wrong.”

Andrew stares at the screen impassively. 

“Fine,” Aaron sighs. “You can bring him.” 

“I wasn’t asking permission.”

“ _Boys_ ,” Nicky says. “This is great. We’ll all have dates.”

“Yeah,” Aaron says drily. “I’m real excited about my plus one.”

Nicky, always a social lubricator (though not always a successful one), changes the subject quickly to the canapés that Katelyn’s family is so generously subsidizing. Andrew mostly tunes out, clicking absently through the news in another tab until a text message from Allison pops up in the corner of his screen: _he’s home now and doing okay_ followed quickly by _Kevin is out getting him a new phone_. 

Andrew squints at the text and then picks up his phone and opens his Messages to see if it will make more sense in that context. Nothing new or clarifying is revealed there. What happened to Neil’s phone? Who’s doing okay? Who’s home and from where? Why would someone not be doing okay? He frowns and sends _what?_. 

“Andrew?” Nicky asks, sounding concerned. 

Andrew waves a hand dismissively at him without looking up from his phone. 

Allison’s next text takes a minute, but then it comes through: _did Kevin not tell you?_

Tell him _what_? He sends _no_ and feels a buzzing start to develop behind his eyes, noisy and insistent. 

The next text takes a minute, too, but it finally pops up on his screen: _Neil was @ hospital but he’s home now and okay_. 

The anxiety and fury in him coalesce into something heavy in the pit of his stomach. He grips his phone so hard he thinks there’s a real chance he might break it. This time it’s Aaron’s voice that calls his name. He looks up to them both staring at him with wary, worried expressions. He can’t imagine what his own face is doing. 

“I have to go,” he says, and taps out of the call before Nicky’s mouth can even open. Almost immediately, he gets Nicky’s text: _everything okay????_.

No. Everything is not fucking okay. He’s vicious with his movements—putting on his shoes, shoving his wallet in his pocket, grabbing his keys, locking the door behind him. He still doesn’t even know why or when Neil went to the fucking hospital. He has some serious words for Kevin Day. 

Fifteen minutes later he’s standing in front of Neil’s door, trying to limit the violence in his knocking. Allison opens it, smiling, but quickly sobers up when she gets a good look at Andrew. 

“Hey,” she says uncertainly, backing up when Andrew starts pushing into the apartment. “Are you okay?” 

“Where?” Andrew demands. 

“Uh, his bedroom. He’s really okay. Just a minor concussion and some bruising.”

Andrew rounds on her so fast she shrinks back despite the six inches she has on him. “What happened?” 

“Um. I mean, I think he told Kevin more, but I—” 

Fuck it. Andrew gives up on her as useless and tries to keep the speed at which he walks to Neil’s bedroom as reasonable as possible. Allison is on his heels, looking as wary and worried as Aaron and Nicky had on his screen. 

“He’s probably asleep,” she offers as Andrew opens the door. She’s right—Neil is curled up on his side in bed, obviously in a very deep sleep.

“Explain,” Andrew says. 

“If you want, Kevin can—”

“No. Explain now.”

“Okay,” she says, switching to a very soothing voice. Andrew thinks he’s being treated the way she would treat a wild animal. “Some guys got in a fight on the subway. One of them went down and took Neil with him. He hit his head pretty hard and was probably bleeding everywhere. He needed a few stitches, apparently. But he told everyone he was fine and walked off the train. I guess he collapsed on the stairs on his way out of the station.” 

“Kevin?” Andrew asks. 

“Was not with him,” Allison says. “But he’s Neil’s emergency contact. The hospital called him.” 

The hospital called Kevin. And then Kevin decided not to call Andrew. 

Andrew would gut someone who tried to fuck with Kevin, but he suddenly sees the appeal of choking him to death. He watches Neil sleep, his characteristic stillness, the mess of his hair, the bruise forming on his cheek and feels, suddenly, angrier than he can ever recall being. The fear he’d tried to ignore on the way over subsides a little, giving ground to his fury. 

“Go away,” he says. “Close the door behind you. Tell Kevin I’ll deal with him later.” 

When the door clicks shut, he goes and crouches next to Neil, pushing the tangle of hair off his forehead and combing his fingers gently through it until Neil’s eyes open. They’re still the most incredible blue, but the color is a thin slice, overtaken by the dilation of his pupils. 

“Hi,” Neil mumbles, smiling weakly. “You’re here.”

“You’re a full time job,” Andrew says, instead of telling Neil that there’s no world in which he wouldn’t be here, that he would have been with him at the hospital the whole time if anyone had called or texted him, that he would never have let it happen in the first place if they’d been on the train together. 

Neil smiles at him again but drops back into sleep again quickly. Andrew stays, staring until his knees start to ache; he turns and sits on the floor, his back against the bed, his body between Neil and the door, even though he knows there’s no threat coming from that direction. 

It’s not too much later that he hears the commotion of Kevin returning home. The ebb and flow of conversation reaches him through the door, though the voices are too muted to pick out words. Andrew takes a couple of deep breaths, wraps his tattered control more tightly around him, and goes out to get some answers. 

Allison takes one look at his face and makes herself scarce. 

“What?” Kevin asks defensively. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You didn’t call,” Andrew says. 

Kevin stares. “Seriously?”

Yeah, strangulation feels very right at this moment. Andrew takes a step towards him and says, “Don’t I look serious?”

“You didn’t need to be there,” Kevin says, shrugging. 

“I’m the one who decides that.”

“A week ago you were saying you weren’t even in a relationship. Why would we call you?”

He feels like he’s just been plunged into ice water. Does Kevin think that’s the price he has to pay for not giving it some kind of label? Is it? Does he have to earn the right to be the first call by being Neil’s ‘boyfriend’? Fuck him and fuck that. Not to mention, _we_? Did Neil not think or want to call him either? Did none of them believe Andrew would show up for this? Would he be home wondering why Neil wasn’t responding to texts if Allison hadn’t assumed he’d heard and sent him an update? Moreover, does that mean Allison had actually assumed and been unsurprised that he’d known and still not come? His anger spikes dangerously. 

If he’s being honest with himself, though, he knows his response to all of this isn’t nothing. He’d show up for other people, too—for Aaron, for Nicky, for Bee, for Kevin and Allison—but he can’t pretend the panic and rage he’d felt at being in the dark, being the last to know, is anything other than Neil-specific. 

“If something involves Neil,” he bites out, “you call me. Immediately.” 

“Sure, whatever,” Kevin says. He shrugs again. “Are you staying?” 

Andrew tries to convey the life-threatening stupidity of that question with the flatness of his expression. 

“Here’s his new phone,” Kevin says. “He can sleep another hour, but then I need to wake him up.” 

Andrew feels another sharp stab of fury. “Give me the instructions,” he orders. “I’m doing it.” 

“Uh huh,” Kevin says. His expression changes, though, from defensive exasperation to a speculative gleam. He shoves the little stack of papers on the bar into the bag with the phone and hands it all over to Andrew. 

This time, when Andrew closes the door to Neil’s room, he locks it. He takes up post next to Neil in bed and pulls the new phone out, unwrapping it and plugging it into the charger on his side of the bed before he starts setting it up. He signs in with the password Neil had given him and watches Neil’s messages and apps and photos populate the phone. When he checks for his own messages, he finds that his latest contact name is 🙄😘🍆. Allison’s work, he has to assume. He taps into his contact and edits it to _Andrew_. After a moment’s hesitation, he adds the 🔪 and hits save.

. : : .

He’s calmed by the time Allison knocks. Andrew has already woken Neil once and had a brief and drowsy conversation about the latest in exy before he let him pass back out. Google tells him the advice on this front is mixed, but he’s going to play it safe and check in often. 

Andrew climbs carefully out of bed and opens the door enough to let Allison peek her head in .

“How’s he doing?” she asks. 

“Fine.” 

“Since you’re already here,” she says, smiling winningly, “we should pack.”

Andrew raises his eyebrows questioningly at her. 

“For our boy,” she says patiently. “For your trip. Before he tries to do it himself and makes bad choices.”

Neil shifts on the bed. When Andrew looks back at him, he looks like he’s still in a deep sleep. He wants to crawl back into and feel the body heat warming the space between them under the covers, but he steels himself against the urge and says, “Does he even have a suitcase?”

Beaming, Allison rolls a rose gold hard-sided suitcase through the door ahead of her. “He’s borrowing mine.”

. : : .

A thousand competing desires war in Andrew when he finally finds himself standing with Neil in front of Aaron and Nicky. He’s still twitchy from the plane. He wants, simultaneously, to introduce Neil as his..something and to introduce Neil as a friend. He wants to lace their fingers together and keep Neil pressed close to his side and he wants to stand three feet away from him so their actual relationship won’t be so conspicuous. He wants to hide Neil and all of the feelings he inspires away from the world and he wants to write his name all over him so everyone can see it. 

He’s saved from having to make any decisions by Nicky saying, delightedly, “You must be Neil.” He pulls a stiff Neil into a very familiar hug and clutches him there. “I’m so happy to finally meet you.”

It goes on a few seconds too long, so Andrew twists his hand in the back of Neil’s shirt and pulls back until Nicky has to release him. 

Aaron’s greeting is much less effusive. He matter-of-factly shakes hands with Neil, then turns thoughtful eyes on Andrew. Aaron can be as protective as Andrew in his own way. Andrew knows that him showing up with someone, sharing a room with someone, will be setting off all kinds of alarms in Aaron’s head. He wants both to ask for a second room to put a stop to the speculation and to bundle up Neil in the room they’re sharing and ignore all of this in favor of putting his hands and mouth all over him.

“Thanks for coming,” Aaron says, as awkwardly as if Andrew is a distant aunt instead of his twin. 

Andrew nods shortly. 

“Your room,” Nicky cuts in, “is on the third floor. We already checked you in. We’ll let you get settled but we could meet for dinner? Two hours?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Andrew sees Neil studying him. After a moment, Neil turns back to Nicky and says, “That sounds good.” 

Neil takes the room keys that Nicky hands over and does the whole “see you soon” politeness routine so that it’s not rude when Andrew grabs both of their suitcases and starts wheeling them towards the elevator.

The room has two beds, which Andrew doesn’t read much into. Two queens is standard in the US. He’d pay a lot more attention to the reservation if it turned out to be one king. He pushes his suitcase into the corner and throws himself on the bed furthest from the door, watching as Neil rolls his next to the dresser. When Neil turns to survey the other bed, Andrew holds out his hands and says, “Come here.”

When he’s in reach, Andrew pulls Neil down on top of him and rolls them onto their sides, ignoring the awkwardness of Neil’s attempts to keep his arms and legs in bounds. He reels them back in quickly, settling into his familiar place against Andrew’s chest.

“Hi,” Neil says, his eyes soft. 

“Stop talking,” Andrew says. “Kiss me.”

. : : .

The tiny cheesecakes turn out to be incredible. Andrew loads up with 3 of each kind and keeps the plate close to his chest protectively. They’ve been making the rounds for what feels like hours—it’s been almost two, of this he is sure. That fantasy he had two months ago about Neil being with him for all this shit, about having him as a buffer, about Neil being a solid object Andrew can lean against—it’s even better than that. He hadn’t anticipated the pleasure of watching Nicky try to pump Neil for information and get nowhere. He definitely hadn’t envisioned the amount of time they’d spend ducked together and outdoing each other with vicious snark about the other guests. 

He pops the first little cheesecake square into his mouth and looks up when Neil crashes into a chair next to him, holding a plate piled high with things that are not dessert. Andrew sends him a pitying glance. 

“Could I interest you in something that is not a dessert?” Neil asks. “I have a bunch of small foods. These are little meatballs and these are lobster rolls. I think these are pieces of steak wrapped in bacon. Here’s macaroni and cheese and the tiniest burgers I have ever seen.” 

“Your plate is sad,” Andrew says. 

He does reach over and take a couple of the burgers, which really are very small. After a second look, he snags one of the lobster rolls. To make room, he studies his plate and selects one of the best cheesecakes—the vanilla bean mousse one—and puts it carefully into an open spot on Neil’s plate. 

Nicky flops into a chair across the table from them. Somehow, he’s disheveled like he’s been partying hard into the early morning and not mingling with white people from 6:30 - 8:00pm. 

Andrew pops a lobster roll into his mouth and looks at him blandly. 

“Hell of a party,” Nicky says. He loosens his tie dramatically. 

Andrew turns to look doubtfully at the room around them and catches Neil doing the same thing. 

“Adorable.” Nicky leans across the table, looking engrossed. “Neil, you have dodged nearly all of my personal questions. I feel like I don’t know anything about you.”

Neil nods in acknowledgment and offers nothing. Andrew suppresses a laugh and keeps a straight face, leaning over to steal a bite of the mac and cheese off of Neil’s plate. 

“Oh my god,” Nicky says. “Is this what perfect compatibility looks like? You two are killing me.” 

Neil, next to Andrew, produces a serrated butter knife and passes it to him. Andrew tests the weight blatantly, flipping it and catching it again, studying its gleam in the light. 

“I’m going to get details,” Nicky says smugly. “We’re all here together now. You won’t be able to resist me.” 

From the front of the room, the unmistakable sound of a fork against a champagne glass rings out over the crowd. Andrew looks up to see Aaron standing nervously, a microphone in his hand. 

“Hi,” Aaron says. “I’m Aaron, Katelyn’s fiance.” 

Yes, Andrew thinks. Presumably most of these people are aware of that by this point in the evening. He watches with some interest as Aaron flushes and makes an aborted reach for the neck of his shirt. 

“Most of you are here for Katelyn,” Aaron says. “Which I totally get, because I’m here for her too.”

Light laughter. Not bad. Andrew would rather die.

Andrew watches as his twin visibly steels himself to keep talking. Katelyn is sitting next to him and she reaches out, taking his hand. When Aaron turns to her, his body language shifts dramatically. His shoulders soften, his face brightens, his whole body leans towards hers. In contrast, Andrew feels something in himself clench. 

Aaron says, “I just wanted to tell all of you that I know how special Katelyn is. Meeting her was the best thing that ever happened to me. Everything about my life is different and better because I know her. Katelyn, thank you for saying yes. Thank you for loving me as much as I love you. I didn’t know it was possible to feel the way I feel about you. I thought it had to be fiction, but it’s not—it’s just you. I want you to know that I’m going to spend the rest of my life making you happy. This moment in our lives is so perfect, but I can’t wait until we’re old and looking back on it together.” 

Katelyn’s eyes are misty as Aaron drops the microphone and kisses her hand. The look on Aaron’s face is so radiant, Andrew almost doesn’t recognize him. But the glow of that look—that he does recognize. He’s not sure it’s ever written on his face so obviously, but he knows he feels it all the fucking time. Helpless, he looks at Neil, who catches the movement of his head and turns to smile at him. 

Andrew can’t figure out what to say or where to even start. Before he can formulate any kind of speech, Neil reaches over and slots their hands together in Andrew’s lap. 

He realizes, suddenly, that so much of the reason he feels this way is that he doesn’t actually have to say a word. He wants to acknowledge it somehow, though. To have the courage to do that much for Neil. He squeezes Neil’s fingers tight and turns to press his face against the side of Neil’s head when he props his chin on Andrew’s shoulder. 

“I saw the door to the roof earlier,” Neil mumbles. “If you want to be alone.” 

“Not alone,” Andrew says. He closes his eyes and breathes Neil in. “Just with you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks as always to @lemonicee who soothes me and listens to Spotify's Chill Hits with me for probably way too long.
> 
> This is probably too soft, but soft is what I needed right now, so here we are.


End file.
